


Neverdie

by thatsoddlyromantic



Category: Neverknock
Genre: Alternate Canon, Eventual Fluff, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-20 14:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsoddlyromantic/pseuds/thatsoddlyromantic
Summary: “She should have been dead. Jenna should have been in that hospital bed hooked up to all the tubes and wires and not her. Come to think of it, Grace didn’t even know how she was still alive. And then, she happened to glance over and saw for the first time who was in the bed on the other side of the room.”Grace and Leah both survived. But, Grace doesn’t know how. (The first of a two-shot. Set in the same alternate canon as “Neverkiss” but taking place after the end of the movie.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve discovered that I really enjoy writing these characters and their relationship, so I’m back with more! If you like it make sure to leave kudos and/or a comment :)

Jenna didn’t make it. That was the first thing Grace found out the next day in the hospital room, bandaged up in gauze from her neck to her torso and memories of the night of horrors she’d endured still foggy in her mind. Her dad was there to see her when she awoke, sitting beside her hospital bed.

“Dad...” Grace had asked, slowly regaining consciousness, “where’s Jenna?”

The crestfallen look on his face told Grace everything she needed to know.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

Grace wanted to cry, to scream, to react in some visible way to the news that her sister was dead, but instead she just felt numb. This was all her fault. If she hadn’t gone out with her friends last night and let Jenna come along, none of this would have happened. They should have just stayed at home, watching cheesy horror movies that weren’t too scary and eating Halloween candy like they usually did. Grace’s heart sank as her dad held her, pulling her into his arms.

Grace herself had been lucky to make it through the night, having sustained some pretty severe burns on her neck and chest in the aftermath of the attacks. The last thing she remembered was crying out in anguish as an unbearable fiery heat surged through her, being knocked to the ground and then... darkness. Total, pitch-black darkness.

She should have been dead. Jenna should have been in that hospital bed hooked up to all the tubes and wires and not her. Come to think of it, Grace didn’t even know how she was still alive. And then, she happened to glance over and saw for the first time who was in the bed on the other side of the room.

Grace’s breath caught in her chest upon seeing her. She shut her eyes, scared that the other girl wasn’t actually there and instead some kind of hallucination. After everything she’d been through, she couldn’t help but question everything she saw. But sure enough, as Grace slowly opened her eyes again, there she was.

_Leah._

She was sitting upright in her bed talking to a nurse, with one arm in a sling and bandages wrapped around her abdomen. Her short dark hair framed her face, which was even paler than usual. Even wearing a hospital gown, she still looked effortlessly beautiful.

_And she was real._

“Leah,” Grace gasped. Her throat was dry, not having had anything to drink since she woke up.

Hazy memories of Halloween night flooded back to Grace all at once, jumbled up in her mind. _Being surrounded by fire. The Neverknock. Running through a corn maze. Her sister missing, her friends dying, saving Leah... kissing Leah._

Her heart beat rapidly at this last memory, the sudden spike in heart rate immediately reflected on the cardiac monitor. She wanted to get out of the bed and run over to Leah, but that was impossible in her current state.

“Grace?” a familiar voice answered back.

Their eyes met across the hospital room, Grace’s green ones staring into Leah’s blue.

“You’re here,” Grace said quietly.

“Yeah... I am,” Leah replied, giving Grace a soft smile. “We both are.”

Grace kept her eyes on Leah for a moment more, looking at her as if she was seeing her for the first time. Then, she quickly turned back to face her dad.

“Uhhh, Dad? Can I talk to Leah for a moment?” she asked. “She’s my... friend.”

The word “girlfriend” in relation to Leah didn’t feel right to Grace; at least, not yet. And Leah was her friend. They’d shared a kiss, and they knew they both felt something for each other that was hardly platonic, but at the time they’d had more pressing concerns than settling on a relationship status.

“Of course!” he said. Then he waved at Leah, making his presence known to her. “Hi Leah, I’m Grace’s dad.”

“Hi,” Leah said, giving him a small wave back with her uninjured arm.

“Alone,” Grace clarified.

“Oh... okay, sure!” Her dad seemed surprised, but got up from the chair he was sitting in by Grace’s bed. “I’ll be right outside if you need anything, okay sweetie?”

Grace nodded gratefully.

He gave her a kiss on the cheek before walking out of the room, leaving Grace and Leah alone together for the first time since everything had happened. Granted, their hospital beds created a bit of physical distance between them, but it was the closest they could be to one another.

“Your dad seems to really care about you,” Leah commented.

“Yeah,” Grace said. “He does. He cared about both of us.”

Grace looked down.

“Is Jenna...” Leah began, unable to complete the sentence.

Grace nodded.

“Oh, Grace... I’m so sorry.”

Grace didn’t know what to say in response. She was still at a loss for words when it came to Jenna.

“Thank you,” Grace finally said, her voice barely a whisper. Then a nagging thought in the back of her mind told her that Leah might know what happened after the attack. And if she did, maybe there was a chance she’d be able to help Grace piece together the missing memories that troubled her.

“Leah... how am I alive?” she asked.

Leah looked at her quizzically.

“You don’t remember?”

Grace shook her head, eyes wide.

While most of the night’s events had come back to her, she still struggled to remember what had happened long after she was attacked in the house. All she could recall was an intense pain as the world around her slowly faded out of focus during what she assumed at the time were her last moments alive. But what Leah said next helped Grace fill in that memory gap with just a few words.

“I saved you, Grace.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your reviews! It means a lot that people are enjoying this story so far. Now here’s the second and final part!  
> (Note: I recommend reading my first Neverknock fic, “Neverkiss”, before this one if you haven’t already.)

As Leah recounted what had happened leading up to the attack at the house, everything began to make sense to Grace.

“I knew that you’d gone back to the house to look for Jenna,” Leah explained. “And you promised to text me when you found her. I kept checking my phone, hoping that I’d see a text from you so I’d know you were safe... but I never did. So I got worried.”

Grace bit her lip. Her eyes were still focused on Leah as she continued her story.

“Since I didn’t want to show up unprepared, I looked around for some kind of weapon. There wasn’t much, so I ended up grabbing an axe that was outside a nearby tool shed. I ran back to the house as fast as I could, hoping I wasn’t too late. And then, when I got there...”

Leah looked as if she was about to cry just remembering what she’d seen.

“What happened?” Grace urged her.

“I heard you screaming so I ran inside, afraid I was too late. I saw Jenna on the ground and it was,” - here Leah struggled to get the words out - “it was trying to burn you alive, Grace.”

Grace gulped. Her mind flashed back to the night her mother died, how helpless and terrified she felt seeing everything around her engulfed by flames. And tonight, she’d almost met the same fate.

“I couldn’t just stand there and watch so I pushed you out of the way, charging right at it. It threw me against the wall but I saw you collapse on the ground and that made me fight even harder. I swung my axe at its head over and over as it attacked me, and I was bleeding out but I kept attacking, determined to kill it. Because even if I died there, Grace - even if the Neverknock killed me instead - I’d die knowing that I did everything I could to save you.”

Grace didn’t know what to say. Her mind was reeling as she processed the truth of Leah’s words. That was why everything had gone black - Leah had pushed Grace out of harm’s way and she collapsed soon after from the searing pain of the Neverknock’s burn. And Leah had been willing to die for her. Hell... she nearly did.

“You saved me,” Grace said, still in shock. “You’re so brave, Leah...”

“Well... I wouldn’t have even been alive then without you,” Leah replied, blushing a little. “We saved each other last night.”

“Yeah... I guess we did.”

“I didn’t even know if you’d make it, Grace. When I woke up the nurse told me that I was lucky to be here and when I asked about you... well, they said you barely had a pulse when they found you. Good thing the paramedics got there in time, huh?”

“Yeah,” Grace said, managing a small smile.

She was here, and so was Leah. Alive. Together. She knew she couldn’t avoid dealing with what had happened to Jenna forever... it still hadn’t fully sunk in. None of it had. But for now, at least she had the small comfort of knowing she didn’t lose Leah too.

* * *

Jenna’s funeral was a few weeks later, just a couple days after Grace had been discharged from the hospital. Leah was released a few days earlier. Grace had asked Leah to be there with her because she didn’t want to go through it alone. During their stay in the hospital, the two friends had grown even closer. Somehow they’d managed to convince the hospital staff to move their beds together so it was easier for them to talk. Granted, it was mostly Leah talking - about her childhood, her coming out story, her favourite places, anything she could think of that had happy memories attached - while Grace listened. Sometimes Grace’s dad would visit too, and even he could tell that being around Leah was good for Grace. Even though Grace was still fairly closed off, every once in a while Leah would say something that would make her actually smile or even laugh. Leah knew that it would take her friend some time to open up after the trauma she’d been through. She’d wait as long as it took.

While she was still recovering herself, Leah couldn’t even begin to imagine how Grace was feeling after losing her sister. Leah was an only child so she’d never known what the bond between siblings felt like. She didn’t truly know the sense of protectiveness that came from looking after a younger brother or sister, but she knew that having it suddenly and unexpectedly ripped away must hurt like nothing else. The closest comparison she could draw was watching in horror as Grace was about to die.

* * *

 It was the day of Jenna’s funeral. Grace held Leah’s hand tightly during the whole service, not wanting to let go. Both of them wore black dresses as per the tradition of mourning. In Grace’s other hand, she clutched a bouquet of flowers. When the time came to place the flowers on top of Jenna’s casket during the reception, Grace broke down in tears. Somehow the reality of the situation hadn’t hit her until that moment - until she had to say goodbye to her sister. Forever. Grace sobbed, collapsing into Leah’s arms. Leah held her tightly, comforting her and reassuring her that what had happened to Jenna wasn’t her fault. Grace shook her head and continued to cry, letting all the emotions she’d managed to hold back finally spill out onto Leah’s black dress in the form of her tears. It was the first time she’d cried since Halloween night.

* * *

 A couple weeks after Jenna’s funeral, Grace was starting to feel more like her old self again. She was back in school, for one thing. Also she’d been going to weekly grief counseling sessions after school, which the guidance counselor arranged for students who’d been friends with those who were killed. Leah went to those too - not only because they were her friends, but because she wanted to be there as moral support for Grace. Which had helped a lot, since Grace was finally starting to open up about what she’d been through. And she’d been hanging out with Leah more and more often - just as friends, though. Because that was what they both needed right now. A friend.

* * *

 Grace was at home working on an assignment for one of her classes one Saturday afternoon when the doorbell rang. She put down the pen and paper and went downstairs to see who it was. When she opened the door she saw Leah standing there, wearing casual clothes and smiling brightly.

“Hey!” Grace greeted her, smiling back.

“You’re not doing anything right now, are you?” Leah asked.

“Just working on some homework... why?”

“I was wondering if, um, if you wanted to maybe go somewhere together?”

It was then that Grace noticed the bouquet of flowers Leah held behind her back.

Grace raised an eyebrow, the pieces slowly falling into place. Leah showing up unannounced. Bringing her flowers.

“Wait... are you asking me out? Like, on a date?”

Leah blushed.

“Do you want it to be a date?” she asked. “Because if not, I’m totally okay with that, we can just be friends if that’s what you -“

She was cut off by Grace’s lips meeting her own, just like they had the first time they kissed on Halloween night. The eagerness of Grace’s response caught her by surprise but Leah kissed her back, leaning up on her toes a little as Grace was the taller of the two. It felt like they were picking up exactly where they left off. This time however, they didn’t have to worry about whether or not they were going to live through the day. They’d already survived the horrors of that night. Now they had the chance to have a future together.

“So... is that a yes?” Leah asked, gently pulling back from the kiss after a moment. Her eyes shone with hope as she looked at Grace expectantly.

“Yes. It is!” Grace exclaimed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Leah beamed.

“Oh, right... these are for you,” she said shyly, handing Grace the bouquet of flowers. Now that they were in front of her, Grace could see that they were sunflowers.

“Awww, I love them,” Grace said as she admired the bouquet. “Thank you!”

Leah kissed Grace’s cheek, and Grace blushed.

“Now, how about that date?” Leah said with a smile.

She extended her hand to Grace, who happily took it. Even though she didn’t know what Leah had planned for the two of them, she felt butterflies at the idea of going on a real date with her. It was something she never thought she’d have the chance to do. And after everything they’d been through together, Grace knew deep down in her heart that she would follow Leah anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you go... the ambiguous ending that our gays deserve. I’ve loved continuing Grace and Leah’s story and found it filled my need for them to find happiness after everything they’d been through, so I hope this conclusion satisfies you as well! As always, leave kudos or a review to let me know what you think :)


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